July 30, 2016

"... opposing her candidacy on both policy and personal grounds. He has said that he has more material about the presidential campaign that he could release, which has raised the specter of more embarrassing disclosures just as Democrats try to capitalize on the momentum coming out of their convention this week."

BUT: Why is Assange so antagonistic to Hillary? He's not for Trump, is he? Asked (on British TV), Assange said Trump was "completely unpredictable," but:

First, citing his “personal perspective,” Mr. Assange accused Mrs. Clinton of having been among those pushing to indict him after WikiLeaks disseminated a quarter of a million diplomatic cables during her tenure as secretary of state.

“We do see her as a bit of a problem for freedom of the press more generally,” Mr. Assange said....

In addition, Mr. Assange criticized Mrs. Clinton for pushing to intervene in Libya in 2011 when Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was cracking down on Arab Spring protesters; he said that the result of the NATO air war was Libya’s collapse into anarchy, enabling the Islamic State to flourish.

“She has a long history of being a liberal war hawk, and we presume she is going to proceed” with that approach if elected president, he said.

Here's an essay Assange put up last February: "A vote today for Hillary Clinton is a vote for endless, stupid war":

Hillary didn't just vote for Iraq. She made her own Iraq. Libya is Hillary's Iraq and if she becomes president she will make more.

I have had years of experience in dealing with Hillary Clinton and have read thousands of her cables. Hillary lacks judgement and will push the United States into endless, stupid wars which spread terrorism. Her personality combined with her poor policy decisions have directly contributed to the rise of ISIS.

Pentagon generals objected to destroying the Libyan state. They felt Hillary did not have a safe post-war plan. Hillary Clinton went over their heads. Libya has been destroyed. It became a haven for ISIS. The Libyan national armory was looted and hundreds of tons of weapons were transferred to jihadists in Syria. Hillary's war has increased terrorism, killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians and has set back women's rights in the Middle East by hundreds of years. Having learned nothing from the Libyan disaster Hillary then set about trying do the same in Syria.

Hillary publicly took credit for the destruction of the Libyan state. On hearing that the country's president had been killed by her handiwork, she became wild-eyed and gloated "We came, we saw, he died!". In the momentary thrill of the kill, she had aped, of all people, Julius Ceaser.

Hillary's problem is not just that she's [a] war hawk. She's a war hawk with bad judgement who gets an unseemly emotional rush out of killing people. She shouldn't be let near a gun shop, let alone an army. And she certainly should not become president of the United States.

It wasn’t just Israel’s left-wing parties that lost big as part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dramatic victory yesterday. Team Obama, which pulled as many strings as it could to defeat Netanyahu, was embarrassed.

It had dispatched Jeremy Bird, the architect of the grass-roots and online organizing efforts behind both of Obama’s presidential campaign, to Israel to work the same magic there with a group called Victory 15.

Maybe Wikileaks actually helped Hillary. Maybe she wanted to get rid of DWS. And now we've got a Red Scare, with Hillary people and supposedly neutral media-ypes blaming Trump and saying he's in cahoots with Putin.

This woman exhibited a reckless disregard for our security when she was Secretary of State by putting her own needs above the country's. Using an unsecure privately operated computer for official business would never pass muster in any other sector. Not in a charity. Not in a bank. Not in an insurance company. And now we have evidence that yes, indeed, it was accessed by other people. Why the hell is she any party's candidate for the highest office in the land?

Yesterday Wolf Blitzer was asking the Trump spokesperson if Hillary's campaign was hacked, would they use the information gleaned from that hack against her?

It was so funny to me, as if there should be some gentleman's agreement that they'll just ignore hacked information. Like the press doesn't use information that is supposed to be secret all the time (and cover up their sources).

The lady still doesn't get the importance of cybersecurity. What's wrong with her that she can't learn from her mistakes?

Her idea of cybersecurity seems to be to try to shame foreign governments away from using the information they've hacked. And to get the press to shame the people who benefit from the leaking of her hacked information.

Has she ever said anything about how awful it has been that millions of Americans have had their data stolen from US Government computers? Did she ever call out the Obama administration for their failures there?

The timing is odd. If he wanted to hurt HRC, he should have leaked during the Dem primary when Sanders was closing in. I assume that Assange would have preferred Sanders as POTUS over HRC and Trump.

The way he leaked the DNC stuff hurt the Dems with no chance of helping Sanders getting the nomination. And, if he had more harmful stuff, he should have leaked when the Dems could have chosen another candidate. Thus, the timing of the leaks looks more like to help Trump than hurt HRC.

The hacker is Israel; not Russia. Israel just made it look like Russia.

Bibi knows Hillary is completely owned by the Muslim countries. They have already paid her off. She brags about the Iran deal.

This is not hard to figure out. Cui buno? Russia prefers Hillary because she is so weak and stupid. How stupid (and greedy) does one have to be to run that private server. Israel, on the other hand, will get shafted further if Hillary wins. Israel has already been shafted by Obama.

Assange is just the publisher, but the perfect publisher. Israel couldn't trust WaPo and NYT not to publish everything.

When you run an Empire, everyone in the world wants to influence that Empire. It's called survival and it is natural and right. To denigrate it as a hack or a criminal act is to try to deflect away from the fact of Empire and how criminal IT is. If we Americans don't want foreigners trying to influence our elections, we should give up the Empire.

I.F. Stone used information supplied by the Soviet Embassy to report on our misdeeds in the Vietnam war. He was widely praised for his investigative skills, although such skills consisted chiefly of being a conduit for info supplied by the Soviets. I believe that even today he is widely esteemed by journalists. He's right up there with Lincoln Steffens and Walter Duranty, and who here has even heard of Gareth Jones........The bet here is that in the long run these leaks will damage the reputation of Assange far more than that of Hillary Clinton.

Help me out here.Hillary and Co. have been up to no good and I'm supposed to get outraged at the people who are exposing the facts out of a sense of...what?... patriotism?Is Hillary a nationalist now, telling me not to listen to these suspicious foreigners?And Trump, who was xenophobe ten minutes ago, is in cahoots with them?

"The hacker is Israel; not Russia. Israel just made it look like Russia."

Those clever Jews. Wasn't Bibi in Russia just a couple of months ago? Probably to plot this false flag operation.

Seriously, I don't know who did it. I don't think it matters who did it at least not as much as it matters (a) that it could be done at all, which indicates gross ineptitude, and (b) what effect it will have on the hacked parties. Will they become more competent at hiding their secrets? I think I worry more about our overlords getting smart enough to hide the sh*t they're doing and saying when they think we won't find out about it.

But here's the thing; Democrats wear email/Internet incompetence like a badge of honor. There seems to be an assumption that because they're such frequent victims hacking, that theyre the only ones being targeted. As opposed to we're the only ones incompetent.

I find this whole thing Hilarious. The utter hypocrisy. The party of big govt wants to grab more and more data about the rest of us, but can't protect the data it already has on us. And Crooked Hillary so distrusting the American with knowledge of what she did as Secretary of State that instead of using the secured email servers provided by the govt, exposes all of her email, whether classified or not, whether it applied to Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation, or her yoga classes, by using an illegal, minimally protected, easily hacked, private email server. And the existence of this illegal private server was disclosed at least partially through the hacking of Sydney Blumenthal's email, after he was put on the Clinton payroll, as a result of the Obama Administration refusing to let her hire him. The FBI tells the DNC that they are getting hacked, and they refuse to meet, and it turns out through those emails, after being hacked, that the Dems are far more racist, sexist, homophobic, and mysonogystic than they ever have been able to accuse Trump of. The President stands up the Israeli President, then tries to swing their election away from him, and then we find that the very same Israelis may be the ones who hacked the President's party, then made it look like the Russians did it, to whom Crooked Hillary was bribed to allow them to buy 1/5 of our uranium supplies, and gave that infamous "reset" switch, that really turned out to be (if I remember correctly) an emergency shutdown switch. You can't make this sort of stuff up. Of course, the reason that this comedy works so Hillariously is that the public persona of the Dem party is based on a pack of lies (the lie being that they are in this for all sorts of moral reasons, when the result for their leaders is that the only things that matter are power and money), and the biggest lier of them all is their party's Presidential nominee, Crooked Hillary Rotten Clinton.

I think that maybe the reason that the current villains in the hacking of the DNC are the Israelis. This is more credible than the Russians, who had already successfully bribed Crooked Hillary, back when she was Sec of State. Why would they want to hurt her chances for the Presidency? They had already bought her at least once. Contrast that with the Sraelis, whose leader had been intentionally insulted by President Obama, and then Obama tried to swing the Israeli election. Even if the Israelis felt that they would be as safe under Clinton as Trump (unlikely for obvious reasons), Jews are taught about an eye for an eye. Payback is a bitch. So, yes, the Israelis are more credible here than the Russians - which is why I think that they are still spinning like crazy.

Wikileaks, the clearing house for state secrets, seems more about founder Julian Assange's grudges these days: especially the one for Hillary Clinton. Much fuss was made over a quote—that he had "enough evidence" to guarantee an indictment of her—that was widely attributed to him. It turns out, though, that the quote doesn't check out: most point to a mangled interview on the UK's ITV where it isn't even said. Jesse Singal set out to track down a source that no-one bothered to verify It's a surprisingly tantalizing and teasing journey, but the tl;dr seems to be that the quote was originally fabricated by the blog Zero Hedge.

So where did this two-word quote ostensibly uttered by Assange originate? It appears, but can’t be definitively proven, that it first popped up the day after the ITV interview in June, in blog posts covering that interview published by Zero Hedge and Russia Today. Zero Hedge, a popular economics- and finance-focused conservative blog that is very Clinton-averse and, to phrase it diplomatically, has not always had an intensely intimate relationship with the concept of careful fact-checking, published an item headlined “Julian Assange Warns WikiLeaks Will Publish ‘Enough Evidence’ To Indict Hillary Clinton.” The post in question didn’t actually show where in the ITV interview Assange said that, because he didn’t say that. (Wednesday, Zero Hedge followed up with a post which noted that “One month ago, when Wikileaks’ Julian Assange told ITV’s Richard Peston that he would publish ‘enough evidence’ to indict Hillary Clinton, few took him seriously.” If people didn’t take the quote seriously, there was good reason for it.)

From there it was picked up by Russia Today, and thence to the rest of the pressured and unpicky media circus.

"If hackers retrieve publicly-owned docs that were improperly destroyed in the first place--are they hurting or helping US?But -- did the hackers INTEND to hurt the US? Or help? (Apparently, intentions make all the difference in allegedly criminal act.)" - Sharyl Attkisson

On Tuesday, American intelligence officials said that the Russian government was almost certainly responsible for the DNC hack, and The New York Times reported that Assange timed the release of the leak to maximize the political damage to Hillary Clinton.

• On Wednesday, WikiLeaks released more information obtained from the DNC, this time a series of voice mails.

• On Thursday, Edward Snowden, who exposed the National Security Agency's surveillance program and a natural ally to WikiLeaks if there's ever been one, criticized the organization for its insistence on releasing all information it receives in completely raw form. "Democratizing information has never been more vital, and @WikiLeaks has helped," Snowden tweeted. "But their hostility to even modest curation is a mistake."

Critics of WikiLeaks say that Russian intelligence has "weaponized" the organization with the DNC hack, essentially drawing attention to documents by leveraging Wikileaks's brand as a place for juicy documents.

The perception is likely to lessen the organization's impact over time, argues Paul Rosenzweig, a cybersecurity consultant who worked in the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush. "It's the difference between setting yourself up to take information from whistleblowers who may have a legitimate grievance, and making yourself an outlet for spies," he said. Radical transparency loses its appeal once it becomes a tool for governments to use against one another.

According to Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for his work on Edward Snowden’s NSA documents, it is now harder than ever to defend WikiLeaks.

“I used to defend WikiLeaks all the time on the grounds that they were not indiscriminate dumpers of information,” Greenwald told Slate. “They were carefully protecting people’s reputations. And they have changed their view on that — and no longer believe, as Julian says, in redacting any information of any kind for any reason — and I definitely do not agree with that approach and think that they can be harmful to innocent people or other individuals in ways that I don’t think is acceptable.”

Don't love how Crooked Hillary shill Unknown is so desperately trying to divert us from the contents of the emails, and that the people who want to control all of our information were so easily hacked to the distributor/publisher of the hacked information?

Of course, the reason that the Dems are so desperate to change the subject is that not only do the emails show how much the DNC cheated to get Crooked Hillary nominated, but both the emails and voice mails show them to be far more sexist, racist, homophobic, and mysonogystic than Trump and the Republicans ever could be. Which shows the rank hypocrisy of my ch of what they say publicly.

Here Greenwald says what I was getting at earlier: There are all kinds of reasons why ordinary sources (leave Snowden and Ellsberg and WikiLeaks aside) who regularly give information to journalists and are always motivated—or not always but typically motived—by mixed motives or worse. You think the journalist should be in the business of saying, “My policy is that I am only going to report information as long as the person who made it available is sufficiently well motivated?” That view would lead to an imposition on the journalist that I don’t think most journalists should be willing to undertake.

It points to the ridiculousness of blaming Donald Trump for this, or implying (as Wolf BIltzer did) that he shouldn't take advantage of leaked information.

The Democrats show just how provincial they are when they think that the Lefties of the world make some distinction between them & the Republicans. If you're a Lefty who hates the US & all it stands for, then you see Republicans as proud shills for imperialist finance capitalism & Democrats as slightly shyer shills for the same. But, the Democrats don't get cut any slack.

For the international Left, Hillary is an imperialist war-monger, & Trump, whatever his many problems may be, has not yet invaded anyone.

Bruce Hayden said...not only do the emails show how much the DNC cheated to get Crooked Hillary nominated, but both the emails and voice mails show them to be far more sexist, racist, homophobic, and mysonogystic than Trump and the Republicans ever could be.

Given that they are private emails they seem remarkably tame. 'No homo' is a standard millennial trope.

So, literally, the lead story in the New York Times today suggests, and other people have similarly suggested it, that Trump was literally putting in a request to Putin for the Russians to cyberattack the FBI, the United States government, or get Hillary Clinton’s emails. That is such unmitigated bullshit. What that was was an offhanded, trolling comment designed to make some kind of snide reference to the need to find Hillary’s emails. He wasn’t directing the Russians, in some genuine, literal way, to go on some cybermission to find Hillary’s emails. If he wanted to request the Russians to do that, why would he do it in some offhanded way in a press conference? It was a stupid, reckless comment that he made elevated into treason.

Why is everyone so concerned about WHO is doing the hacking? The meat of the matter is that this information was very hack-able. Whenever a weakness in cyber-security is exposed, the real focus should be on identifying and fixing the problem. Because if Hacker A can do it, Hackers B & C can, too.

MayBee said...we see the Democrats doing the exact same thing with their own candidate.

But Bernie was never their candidate. He joined the party as a matter of convenience immediately before his run and quit immediately after. Not a Democrat. Under the circumstances the Dems were fairly accommodating. They were certainly not obliged to be neutral. Bernie got his point across even though he never had any change of winning.

You interviewed Chris [Hayes] about Brexit and I just want to submit to you that the mistake the U.K. media and U.K. elites made with Brexit is the exact same one that the U.S. media and U.S. elites are making about Trump. U.K. elites were uniform, uniform, in their contempt for the Brexit case, other than the right-wing Murdochian tabloids. They all sat on Twitter all day long, from the left to the right, and all reinforced each other about how smart and how sophisticated they were in scorning and [being snide] about UKIP and Boris Johnson and all of the Brexit leaders, and they were convinced that they had made their case. Everyone they were talking to—which is themselves—agreed with them. It was constant reinforcement, and anyone who raised even a peep of dissent or questioned the claims they were making was instantly castigated as somebody who was endangering the future of the U.K. because they were endorsing—or at least impeding—the effort to stop Brexit. This is what’s happening now.Do you think the people voting for Donald Trump because they feel their economic future has been destroyed, or because they are racist, or because they feel fear of immigrants and hate the U.S. elite structure and want Trump to go and blow it up, give the slightest shit about Ukraine, that Trump is some kind of agent of Putin?

I wish the disastrous decisions re Libya were the bigger story. Gaddafi repeatedly warned the west what was going on, and that they needed him. Maybe Trump will get smart and focus on this and perhaps the catchy phrase -- what she did was "feed the Islamic serpent." It is a simple message; Gaddafi was not a nice guy, but he was a bluwark of sorts. HC and Obama and their JV team of advisers could not see beyond two moves out. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/gaddafi_and_obama_one_of_them_was_fighting_islamist_terrorists_in_libya.html

Yes and no. Bernie lost the popular vote and was never a serious threat to win. Trump won the popular vote, easily. Clearly the establishment didn't recognize Trump as a serious threat until it was too late to change the rules.

Yes and no. Bernie lost the popular vote and was never a serious threat to win.

Ok, but this was about trying to question his religion. Something we have been assured for the past 7 years is a horrible thing to do. Does it make it ok to do because Bernie wasn't winning the popular vote and hadn't been a Democrat for very long? Or does it mean it mean it really wasn't the worst thing in the world to do, even when it was about Obama?

"Hillary lacks judgement and will push the United States into endless, stupid wars which spread terrorism. Her personality combined with her poor policy decisions have directly contributed to the rise of ISIS." Even if it's a hoax, it's a good one: sounds like it could come from Assange, spot on with regard to Hill.

It also illustrates the problem Hill faces if and when her "destroyed" emails surface: it's hard to prove that manipulated emails do not come from you. The potential for blackmail stems both from actual content and from the threat of someone "revealing" devastating stuff that cannot effectively be disproved. Putin and Xi have the ultimate blackmail tool: do x, or else we know some unsavory characters who may spread all sorts of unpleasant information that may or may not come from your former private server.

"“It might may (sic) no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist,”

A few years ago they did a survey where it was found that the US public would be more comfortable voting for a muslim than an atheist. The quickest way to kill most political campaigns is show that the candidate is an atheist. And, Bernie is in all probability actually is an atheist, based on his own statements.

As an atheist I resent this shit but it is standard operating procedure in US politics.

"What's wrong with her that she can't learn from her mistakes?" This assumes the private server was a mistake. It wasn't: it was a calculated gamble that she could keep her info out of the hands of the GOP Congress, the real enemy, communicate safely, as long as needed, with advisers like Blumenthal, and conduct business for the foundation. She/they bet the system was sufficiently corrupt, sufficiently staffed by Dems serving the party, to let them get away with it. They bet right. (Though the costs in hassle factor and content of SoS emails revealed was probably higher than anticipated.)

Of course, at this point, Hill is simply the point person for a posse--she doesn't come up with cybersecurity plans, she has no earthly idea about computer systems, she doesn't know what there is to learn, and if the emails published thus far show anything, it is that pls-print, often-confused Hill is utterly clueless most of the time, entirely dependent on handlers. Granny needs a lot of hand-holding.

All the neocons have signed on board with Hillary. I previously supported some of the neocon endeavors, more specifically the war in Iraq. SO I dont view the word "neocon" as a perjorative.But dems and libs do. So, they must be a bit surprisied and/or disappointed that the neocons are all backing Hillary over Trump.The Rolling Stones had a song where they made their outrage known. It was called fittings "Sweet Neo Con" Here;s a sampling of the lyrics:

You call yourself a Christian I think that you're a hypocrite You say you are a patriot I think that you're a crock of shit

And listen now, the gasoline I drink it every day But it's getting very pricey And who is going to pay

How come you're so wrong My sweet neo con.... Yeah

It's liberty for all 'Cause democracy's our style Unless you are against us Then it's prison without trial

But one thing that is certain Life is good at Haliburton If you're really so astute You should invest at Brown & Root.... Yeah

No, but do you reasonably expect her to. The head of the CIA, John Brennan, had his personal email hacked, by a 13-year-old. Merkel had her email hacked, by professionals. These old people are generally clueless about how the internet and email work.

And, even if they weren't, much more knowledgeable people than them have suffered security failures. As far as I can see, if something is connected to the internet it is hackable.

If any major intelligence agency is involved then all "clues" will be disinformation leading into a wilderness of mirrors and smoke. This assures that any real clue will be lost in the pile of false leads.

It's probably a teenage Bernie-Bro getting revenge and laughing at everyone chasing ghosts down a rabbit hole to Wonderland.

MayBee said...The people who run Apple and Amazon understand how important it is.

The FBI broke into the iPhone 5C but, surprisingly, there hasn't been a serious hack of Amazon. The problem for these large companies is that even if they are secure from external threats an internal hacker like Snowden will take them down eventually.

If any major intelligence agency is involved then all "clues" will be disinformation leading into a wilderness of mirrors and smoke. This assures that any real clue will be lost in the pile of false leads.

It's probably a teenage Bernie-Bro getting revenge and laughing at everyone chasing ghosts down a rabbit hole to Wonderland.

People like you make WikiLeaks necessary.

Long live WikiLeaks. They are starting to deserve more allegiance than any nation-state.

As an atheist I resent this shit but it is standard operating procedure in US politics.

That sounds like an excuse for religious bigotry in American politics. The Democrats' own "Southern Strategy".

Despicable. They can get away with it, but only if they're allowed. And they're bunglers anyway. More people are outraged by the revelation than would have been swayed by their stupid disinformation. Sanders went on to kick Clinton's ass in at least one of those states - even with all the innuendo-masquerading as "knowledge" that you present as some sort of personal inside info about Sanders.

In 2008, The Clintons tried the same crap with Obama. Allegations of dog whistles were rife. And then there was Biljob Billshit's statement about how just a few years ago (Obama) would have been stuck just getting them all coffee.

In the end, if this stuff was on her server, it is ALREADY unsecured. It'd be hard to argue that releasing it would cause immeasurable harm to national security since her actions did not lead to any punishment. Release all of it. We deserve to know.

Don't love how Crooked Hillary shill Unknown is so desperately trying to divert us from the contents of the emails, and that the people who want to control all of our information were so easily hacked to the distributor/publisher of the hacked information?

I said it on the day it broke: If the leak hurts the Democrats, all you'll hear about is the source of the leak. Not the info itself.

I didn't notice the press or Dems being concerned when somebody hacked Palin's email account and leaked them all. Hell, the media asked for HELP IN GOING THRU ALL OF THEM.

Why is this different? Outside of Palin, at that time, was not a candidate for President while Hillary is. Should candidates for the White House get MORE privacy than average citizens? I always thought it was the opposite, personally.

'No homo' is a standard millennial trope.

It's not homophobic, though...how?

I mean, besides "Well, they're Democrats..."

No, but do you reasonably expect her to.

Yes. If you choose to set up a private server, then you're taking ALL of the risks involved as well. If you're not competent enough to secure it, then you shouldn't have even set it up.

Do we excuse drunks who kill people while driving drunk? No, they knew what they were doing before they even got into the car. They accept all responsibility for all negative outcomes.

I don't love Wikileaks, but for their faults, they are even-handed in their actions. They will release info on anybody.

Hawaii delegate stands decision to flip off camera during DNC roll call. . .She said the DNC asked her to apologize to U.S. Sens. Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz, but she declined. She did, however, offer to personally apologize to the other people she offended in her delegation, she said.

“But I do not apologize to the DNC, and I do not apologize to the representatives who voted against the people of Hawaii who voted 70 percent for Bernie, and yet our superdelegates went for Hillary,” she said.. . .

Why would the Russians want to damage Hillary? That's my question. I think that analyzing world events is now a three body problem (USA, Russia, China) whereas when the Soviet Union fell it was a two body problem - Soviets vs. US. Three body problems can't be solved so we get into a wilderness of Alice down the rabbit hole mirrors when we try to understand.

But anyhow in my novel - It isn't that Hillary wouldn't stay bought; it's that the Russians stop making payments and are letting foreclosure happen. In other words, the Russians dump the Soviet purchase of Hillary. The Soviets wanted a weak US which is Hillary and the Old Left like Bernie Sanders; the Russians want a fairly strong US to maintain a balance of power against China - that's Donald Trump. We should be a junior partner but we must be useful. Hillary who deserted the people at Benghazi and had cop-haters up on the podium with her will never be able to build a strong America. But China would like weak a America so they dump Hillary information on how Russia deserts her. Stunned at this betrayal Hillary's inner Goldwater surfaces so that between day 1 and day 2 of the DNC American flags go up on the convention stage. (Unbelievable piece of business but it's just an image) But Hillary still thinks only the Russians are the enemy, only they are behind info dumps; China is just a business opportunity. Bill is making tons by expediting Chinese business opportunities. (Hmmm, Bill? 4 body problem, 1000 body problem?) Then Donald Trump ... hmm, unpredictable.

Well, that's chapter 1. Why should it make sense? - it's a three body problem.

Incredibly, in America today it is politically safer to be a socialist than an atheist.

There's nothing incredible about that. Socialism prominently went hand-in-hand with some of the most important American political movements during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some of Europe's most progressive programs started, and were abandoned, here.

A society simply cannot survive without the basic social concerns that socialism is built on. But stupid theological abstractions are a complete waste of time, and usually dangerous - as a history of the 1st amendment makes clear. Further, it's completely possible and very likely that Bernie Sanders is simply irreligious, secular, ignostic, spiritual - whichever one of a dozen different varieties of alternatives to dogmatic atheism that are so much more useful and less controversial to a country, than making the strange and equally unprovable claim of "no god".

MayBee:Yesterday Wolf Blitzer was asking the Trump spokesperson if Hillary's campaign was hacked, would they use the information gleaned from that hack against her?

It was so funny to me, as if there should be some gentleman's agreement that they'll just ignore hacked information. Like the press doesn't use information that is supposed to be secret all the time (and cover up their sources).

Anybody else remember the hack that won Obama's election against Ryan? A joint effort of O's campaign and a newspaper.

Gosh, R&B, your words would make perfect sense if it weren't for the tens of millions of people killed by socialists in the twentieth century!The three remaining socialist regimes, where the State controls the means of production, are Cuba and North Korea and Venezuela.If it possible for history to pass a verdict on a political idea, the verdict of history is that socialism causes misery and death.

wildswan:(You probably know this, but...)The 3-body problem is a feature of Newtonian mechanics and differential equations. There is no closed-form solution.In relativistic mechanics, 2 bodies is too many to solve.In quantum mechanics, even 1 body is too many.Some theories about the quantum vacuum suggest that even having no bodies at all is too many.

Analogizing all this to modern politics is left as an exercise for the reader.

The problem with socialism and other left-wing ideologies, stems from the establishment of monopolies that are a perpetual concern in capitalism. While a religious/moral philosophy that reconciles moral and natural imperatives forms the foundation of civilized society, it is competing interests that keep honest people honest and others from running amuck (e.g. catastrophic economic, political misalignments, class diversity, selective exclusion, mass abortions).

My words make perfect sense. Furthermore, unlike yours, my words are true. I have not made up a single falsehood, I have not stretched any truth, I have not misrepresented anything.

But since your cause is a weak one, you need to lie. No totalitarian dictator was a socialist, a party represented by many peaceful, prosperous and well-integrated, productive movements across the whole of Western Europe and the rest of the industrialized world. Anyone can call themselves anything, as your side loves doing. Anarchists can join in and despoil legitimate political movements. A tyrant will lie for power and say they are something popular in order to hijack it, like Hillary is doing. Just because your party, before Trump, was not popular enough to to attract dangerous opportunists - doesn't mean that you can call thieves and murderers the same socialists and pacifists that they try to infiltrate. You have never been robbed by a socialist. No attempt on your life was ever made by a pacifist. I have never seen a thief generously redistribute stolen property to needy, anonymous bystanders. You are simply railing and ranting like the ideologue that you are, in service of an obsolete philosophy that has stopped being useful (if it ever was) to your own party, let alone to the rest of America.

The intellectuals were playing a joke on us with socialism.It was all based on the idea that the narrative arc we see in history was based on something that we could could discern called the dialectic. Master the dialectic, you master history.Yet the socialists were miserable at predicting how history would work out. First World War One was end stage capitalism. Then the Great Depression was end stage capitalism. Then World War Two was end stage capitalism. Then you had the post-war war prosperity in the West. Then you had the collapse of the Soviet Union.The socialists were able to devise explanations for these events, and why they had been wrong about their significance, but only after the fact. They knew no more about the arc of history than a gypsy fortune teller. By their own metrics they were miserable failures.

You are confusing fascism for socialism, R&B. In the "socialist" countries you mention, do the workers control the means of production? Is it the stated goal of their governments that the workers should control the means of production? No?The only mistake I made in my post was to include North Korea in the list of existing socialist nations. I believe they no longer call themselves socialist.If you are talking about the difference between the US style of government and the styles of of government of the social democracies of Europe, you are talking about a difference of degree, not a difference of kind.

No totalitarian dictator was a socialist, a party represented by many peaceful, prosperous and well-integrated, productive movements across the whole of Western Europe and the rest of the industrialized world.

No totalitarian dictator was a socialist, a party represented by many peaceful, prosperous and well-integrated, productive movements across the whole of Western Europe and the rest of the industrialized world.

Sorry, R&B, you're being disingenuous here.

These left-wing totalitarian movements (e.g. Bolshevism) called themselves socialist, their enemies on the Left called them socialist, & their enemies to the Right called them socialist. All agreed that socialism meant the state ownership of the means of production, & by gumbers, the Bolsheviks sure fit that description.

There is a continuum of thought among Marxist socialists (& all modern social democratic parties started off with Marxist assumptions, whether they now abide by them or not). If one thought that the creation of the workers' state requires the dictatorship of the proletariat or else one is stuck with the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, then one became a totalitarian Marxist. If one thought that the creation of the workers' state could be accomplished gradually within a capitalist framework, then one became a revisionist Marxist --- a Democratic Socialist.

In the "socialist" countries you mention, do the workers control the means of production? Is it the stated goal of their governments that the workers should control the means of production? No?

Marx wasn't the only socialist. For years your minions have been using that label against the social democracies of Europe. No credible voice here is calling for ownership of the means of production, and everyone knows it, even on the right. That ship has sailed with Bernie Sanders.

The only idiot I've heard who questioned that Bernie Sanders might have actually been in favor of government ownership of the means of production was that "journalist" Chris Matthews. But nowadays he's aligned with the corrupt Hillary wing that's funding his wife's campaign.

If you want some credibility on attacking the same crony capitalism that Bill Clinton legitimized with the blessing of the right, then stop making up lies about the only factions powerful enough to stop it.

Part of the joke of the intellectuals is to call people like Sanders "social democrats." Sanders even called himself a "social democrat." But where was the democracy part? Sanders had no intention of allowing the people to vote on things like immigration and minority rights. If you are an atheist, where does your justification for working against the will of the people come from? The laws of nature? The dialectic of history?

If you are an atheist, where does your justification for working against the will of the people come from? The laws of nature? The dialectic of history?

I'll let you worry your pretty little head about that. All the while that the worst social darwinists you cheerlead keep spinning around the swirling toilet bowl of the imploding bonfire that ravages like a California drought forest conflagration on the political right.

Clarice suggests she'd vote for MayBee were she running for the presidency. I'm amusing myself putting together a ticket from amongst the commenters here. Buwaya (oh no, that won't work...) and YH, MayBee and Tim in Vermont, or....

"I'll let you worry your pretty little head about that."All you've really got is the will to power. I have the right to make people do the things the things they do not want to do because I have the power to do so.

Whatever, Terry the social Darwinist crony capitalist. The guy who approves of and applauds the people with the power to make people do what they want to do.

It's funny how the people with the least marketable mindsets are the biggest crony capitalists. If Terry could make any money off of the skills he has or generate any enthusiasm off of the things he says, then he probably would. But since he doesn't, he cheerleads and sucks up to those that do.

If you want to understand why Hillary acted as she did with the servers you have to understand who she wants to hide her communications from. She obviously doesn't care if foreign governments get her communications. It is the American people she misleads.

Elon Musk, inventor of PayPal, has leveraged a highly demanded and highly beneficent technology behind a highly demanded product in order to revolutionize the automotive industry in a lucrative and innovative way that improves the market's ability to meet consumer demand. He has been as highly successful with that as he was in his previous industry. Most people, rightly, do and would admire him for this. But then you have lazy bums and takers and "47-percenters" like "Rusty" who can only admire an industry or an entrepreneur for how much harm they do, rather than those that are actually successful doing something decent.

As for Terry, if he's a conservative - or whatever AEI talking points-spewing alternative to libertarian that exists - it's a strange form of conservatism he espouses. He certainly wouldn't be one who takes the work of Hobbes seriously. He certainly wouldn't be one who takes the work of Plato seriously. He's more like one of these revolutionary anti-democrats of the late 20th c. who irrationally feared a trumped-up storytale of communist takeover of the U.S. so much that they advanced a radical notion of constraining political power by marrying it with corporate power, after first privileging corporate power beyond any measure previously imaginable. They advanced a novel thesis so radical that it proposed that the power of the mob could be contained by marginalizing civic associations, and by pretending that money or economic threats could no longer be used to bribe, to extort, or to suppress or advance all other economic challenges or political organization - both for good or for evil.

But then they gave us another one of their wonderful economic depressions, which led to eight years of a progressive whom they prevented from fixing it, and the rest is history. Repeated. And along came Trump to tell them that trading the fortunes and opportunities of the working class for a bunch of resentment against intellectualism, cosmopolitanism, protectionism, progressivism or nationalism wasn't going to work any more. And now they bolted for a lesbian warmongering corporatist tyrant while their ideological water carriers (like Terry) are left to pick up the scraps and wander in the wilderness, waiting for another discredited ideological misadventure to excite them and enslave them.

Tesla15 billion in tax credits from the state of Nevada.150 million in taxpayer money in California to train workers.150 million californis tax credits to employ said workers.150 million in carbon tax credits that he can sell on the open market.7500 per vehicle sold.Like I said. A great crony capitalist.

In my opinion, Wikileaks is doing God's work in hacking the systems of these political apparatchiks- God's work. Assange is to be applauded for not letting his natural political inclinations bias how he goes about it- Wikileaks doesn't play favorites. It is simply high hilarity watching the squirming and recrimination flying from the mouths of Shelob's supporters. I pray that Wikileaks has the 30,000 e-mails Shelob deleted from the private servers. You can be sure the Russians and Chinese have them, but I don't think they are the source of Wikileaks' material, so we may never get to see what she consider non-work related. I hope they hack into the Clinton Foundation and other organization tied to it. You can be sure they are trying to hack into the RNC, but I would guess they haven't successfully done it yet. I wish them luck. They are doing a good thing, and no amount of whining from the likes of Shelob will change my mind. I suspect people like me are good majority of the electorate- I would certainly hope so. We are talking about public ethical hygiene- it is of vital importance.

It's a great thing we don't have 47%-takers like Rusty teaching our students or deciding economic policy. If we did, he'd declare that all the subsidies and historical favoritism applied to oil companies and traditional domestic auto manufacturers, with the massive hundred-year head-start they had, not to mention the barriers to market entry they've muscled onto Tesla through state codes that give conventional auto dealers advantages that they locked Tesla out of - were all great and wonderful and fair and meritocratic!

But Rusty doedn't know shit about any of that. He presumes that every other industry in America is subsidy-free, incentive-free, regulatory capture-free. The gigantic market power they already have is NEVER used to shut out more innovative industries that challenge their dominance! Never! As Rusty shills and shills and shills for old, dying, anti-competitive companies and industries, it's like he sees himself in them. No new skills, no innovative operations in demand. Just a bunch of stale farts that coast along on what they already had simply by virtue of being there first, previous favors that the lawmakers became accustomed to granting, and the power to use those things to bully out competition through any forum OTHER than the actual market.

Rusty - if only you could age quicker. I realize how intimately you identify with obsolescence. But you and your stupid mindset are dragging your country down already. Go more quickly, please. I'm sure there's a nice local market centered around a retirement home that you could contribute to and partake of. Hell, they'd probably actually appreciate your ignorant opinions, assuming you get a steady audience of Alzheimers sufferers.

By three body problem I do refer to physics. Been reading the life of George Kennan and immersing in balance of power history. This time is the same as Kennan's time-Russia rising; but different from Kennan's time-China now a power; but the same-how to handle relations among several powers; but different-because the powers are not all European powers.

Not at all an expert but it just seems that this is balance of power time again but balance of power today seems like the three body problem - insoluble.

And when I see Hillary acting as if the Russians are the Soviets and are the only enemy and raising flags at the DNC trying to attract conservatives as if she were jacklighting deer ... well, she just wouldn't be a good president. I may have shown before that that is my opinion but I'll repeat it.

I previously supported some of the neocon endeavors, more specifically the war in Iraq. SO I dont view the word "neocon" as a perjorative.But dems and libs do. So, they must be a bit surprisied and/or disappointed that the neocons are all backing Hillary over Trump.__________

And who are you backing, neocon endeavor supporter? In case you haven't noticed, the Republican nominee is a Democrat, and the Democratic nominee is a former Republican.

If references to The Three-Body Problem, winner of the Hugo, are too elevated, think of it in terms of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Sergio Leone's apotheosis of the Spaghetti Western. Lee Van Cleef, Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach all kept each other alive at different times for different reasons.

Notice also how half of Rusty's "examples" come from the two states, California and Nevada, that are close enough to each other to want to compete for Tesla's manufacturing business and labor market. These are two states competing between each other for access to a business that they are rightly betting, based on current needs, demand and growth estimates, will go through the roof. If Tesla continues on its current trajectory as the company that it's poised to become, you can bet many more states will offer further incentives in their tax codes to lure it to their own states. States and cities do this all the time in order to promote more business friendly environments to their own economies. Rusty's ranting on the topic just shows how little he understands about how states and cities have to compete against one another in their tax codes in order to attract business to them. This is not the U.S. offering favors to keep old companies well-heeled. These are states that are competing with each other for access to the profits of a company with an inevitably rosy future, whichever state (or country!) it based its manufacturing in.

Rusty either hates American manufacturing or is not that bright about how it works.

"These are two states competing between each other for access to a business that they are rightly betting, based on current needs, demand and growth estimates, will go through the roof."Yet, for some mysterious reason, Musk requires government subsidies. Weird, huh?Elon Musk's growing empire is fueled by $4.9 billion in government subsidieshttp://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.htmlSocialize the risks, privatize the profits. You aren't a socialist, R&B, you are a "socialist."

This is the perfect time to remind people how Hillary got here. It all starts with Bill and Hillary in Arkansas, before she accepted the $100,000 bribe disguised as a series of winning cattle futures trades.

Before Whitewater morphed from a failed S&L and was confused in the public mind with tawdry trysts underneath the Presidential desk, Whitewater was a piece of land.

Here is James Taranto from April 21, 2015:

It involved an Arkansas land development known as Whitewater that was partly owned by Bill and Hillary Clinton and managed by Mrs. Clinton, then the state’s first lady. …

“Clyde Soapes was a grain-elevator operator from Texas who heard about the lots in early 1980 and jumped at the chance to invest. He put $3,000 down and began making payments of $244.69 per month. He made thirty-five payments in all—totaling $11,564.15, just short of the $14,000 price for the lot. Then he suddenly fell ill with diabetes and missed a payment, then two. The Clintons informed him that he had lost the land and all of his money. There was no court proceeding or compensation. Months later they resold his property to a couple from Nevada for $16,500. After they too missed a payment, the Clintons resold it yet again.

“Soapes and the couple from Nevada were not alone. More than half of the people who bought lots in Whitewater—teachers, farmers, laborers, and retirees—made payments, missed one or two, and then lost their land without getting a dime of their equity back. According to Whitewater records, at least sixteen different buyers paid more than $50,000 and never received a property deed.”

This was her beginning. Since then she has gone on to much bigger things.

The Clinton Foundation was sheer genius. I would not be surprised if a few of those 30,000 personal emails referred to it.

If the Clintons reoccupy public housing I am confident they will exit as billionaires.

I am one of the few people who has actually read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations from cover to cover (takes bow). This is my favorite passage:The plans and projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all the most important operations of labour, and profit is the end proposed by all those plans and projects. But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin. The interest of this third order, therefore, has not the same connection with the general interest of the society as that of the other two. Merchants and master manufacturers are, in this order, the two classes of people who commonly employ the largest capitals, and who by their wealth draw to themselves the greatest share of the public consideration. As during their whole lives they are engaged in plans and projects, they have frequently more acuteness of understanding than the greater part of country gentlemen. As their thoughts, however, are commonly exercised rather about the interest of their own particular branch of business, than about that of the society, their judgment, even when given with the greatest candour (which it has not been upon every occasion) is much more to be depended upon with regard to the former of those two objects than with regard to the latter. Their superiority over the country gentleman is not so much in their knowledge of the public interest, as in their having a better knowledge of their own interest than he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge of their own interest that they have frequently imposed upon his generosity, and persuaded him to give up both his own interest and that of the public, from a very simple but honest conviction that their interest, and not his, was the interest of the public. The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

The "country gentlemen" Smith refers to are the gentry, the people who are supposed to be concerned about the nation and its people, rather than about profits alone.

What "requirement," Commander of the Low Information Voters? Rusty quoted state credits. That's absolutely to do with the goal of luring businesses to one state over another. As for your "total number," that's for all his companies, not just Tesla - which means it includes two companies devoted to space exploration and travel and one devoted to solar power, which becomes cheaper and more competitive every year. You're telling me that the government has no compelling state interest in space exploration? Let's dismantle NASA PRONTO! Or sustainable energy development? Who do you think funded the Manhattan Project, you dildo? But I guess we forgot to check with Messiah Adam Smith on what he would have thought about nuclear power or space exploration, let alone what veto power he would have exercised over its funding.

Oh.My.God.Another "socialist" who thinks his devotion to the fads of the elites is more important than knowledge of economics. You'll pull the lever for Hillary, R&B. She thinks that Musk is doing God's work, just like you.

If you can read Adam Smith, then it follows that you can read a high school science textbook. But you obviously can't. You have no idea how I'll vote, you have no idea what I think or know; you really don't have much of an idea about anything that you regurgitate on these pages. But don't worry; elevating a rudimentary text over all subsequent knowledge and reality and following the "elite fad" of privileging obsolescent industries make you as relevant to anyone today or anything as any other run-of-the-mill religious fanatic - including the bums that rant and rave over biblical passages as they hold cardboard signs advertising the apocalypse and asking for food/booze money.

Another "socialist" who is happiest when he is turning out the workers' pockets to pay for his hare brained schemes . . .Are you as ignorant of Keynes as you are of Adam Smith? As for science, your ideas about the desirability of manned space flight follow the paradigm proposed by Werner von Braun, engineer and Nazi, and not those of James van Allen, academic, physicist, and American.

Is Adam Smith even relevant today when Keynesian economics have been the rule for over a century now? Or are you implying that we should get back to supply side?

Your question does not make sense, mockturtle. Keynes' ideas modified classical economics, not replace classical economics. Keynes said that classical economics was unsuited to modern industrial nations because complex supply chains and trade unionism made wages and prices "sticky". Markets did not clear, and as a result business cycle recessions were longer and deeper than classical economics said they should be. Both of those phenomenon, complex supply chains and trade unionism, are not as much of a factor in 2016 as they were when Keynes published his theories. The market has worked to weaken trade unions and create redundancies in supply chains.Capitalism is a solvent. It destroys obstacles that block profits.

I don't even know what the Hawaiian elitist, Terry, is talking about any more. He just projects and assumes and punches out across the ethernet, apparently in the hopes of making people for whom he does not work, at conservative-libertarian "think tanks," proud. Maybe he'd be happier just going to a luau or something. Life in Hawaii must be really nice. A very nice tropical paradise from which to look down on all the working people of America as they wonder about all the legislation that's been stacked against them and the infrastructures that would ordinarily improve their opportunities, just so we can focus instead on the what big corporations want from government and how the working class people can be told that they're lazy and undisciplined.

I guess no tropical paradise is peaceful enough to mollify a sense of entitlement and condescension as intense as "Terry's". In fact, all the beauty that surrounds him must drive him mad, as he seeks new and creative ways of focusing on putting down the working folks of America - even as they rise up and change our political priorities right before our very eyes. That ocean must be better than a protective security gate, as it isolates him from the present and keeps him in the mindset of a very irrelevant past.

And is only practiced by companies not owned by Elon Musk. In fact, all "non-liberal" companies (i.e. those owned by the Kochs and Waltons, we suppose) are pure capitalist utopias, with no favors granted to them by government whatsoever.

They are all crooked, R&B. Didn't you read the Adam Smith quote? 18th century prose is not everyone's cup of tea, but Smith writes in the plain style, not the ornate style of the times. You seem to be a confused and angry person. This is the internets, take a chill pill.I have never made enough money that I stopped having to contribute to social security, R&B. I doubt if I ever will. I have a much better job now than I did in 1980, but in 1980, some of the older worker guys in my dept. (they were then in their mid-thirties) hit the social security limit, with their overtime pay. Non-union work, BTW, that did not require a four-year degree.In 1980 the SS taxable wage limit was $25,900.This year it is $118,500.

I'm not angry. I just get really aggravated at ignorance, especially in the service of a convoluted derailing of a clear direction or discussion on public policy, just so that you can make heroes out of anyone making money and enemies out of the republic that you want the money-makers to control. I understand you want to simplify everything (except Adam Smith - who's eminently simplifiable) but seem to want to throw away every simple description of the ills that ail the country. Regulatory capture is a pretty short phrase, but Terry seems to prefer 18th c. prose and pre-modern economic insights for all the answers that Smith must have apparently somehow anticipated, as if he were an oracle, in a country that didn't even exist when he wrote his tome. And again, let's pretend that the discussions on which energy industries to develop in 2016 or which states should be allowed (or NOT ALLOWED?) to lure industries to locate within their borders were also things that he has al the answers on.

Adam Smith is just a Cracker Jack box passkey for you to whip out so as to duck out of an actual discussion on what goes on in 21st c. America. You don't know and don't give a fuck what's being debated or needs to be faced or resolved today, so you hide in a big book of archaic prose with no new or original or esp. relevant insights to avoid the policy reality. How boring and immature.

From my POV, R&B, you talk about economics but seem unfamiliar with the history of economic thought. Do you even know what the Phillip's Curve is? This is first year economics stuff. People try to spend the least to get the most value in return. This isn't 'capitalist' economics. Frikkin' cows don't walk further than they have to to get a mouth full of grass, and cows aren't capitalists. Lenin was right. All politics come down to "who, whom?" Too many people, liberal and conservatives both, think that politics is working when it makes them "who" and not "whom."

"Instead of actually READING and RESPONDING to what someone said, I'll just make shit up and put words in their mouth."

I got nuthin.

As usual.

Try learning something about economics...

More articulate Rusky: "I'm a worn-out guy working (marginally) in a worn-out field in a state whose economy and innovation index is dwarfed by California's, making crap that no one wants to buy but by golly I sure have some really big, pig-ass ignorant opinions on how governors should conduct their states' business policies!"

You can go by any metric you want: per capita GDP changes, total GDP, total patents issued per capita, economic growth, job growth, deficit reduction, market capitalization on the top companies and industries chartered there. Just pick one, you modern political business genius with an iron-age job.

I mean, I realize that fabricating is your speciality. But when you fabricate facts and arguments out of thin air, it kind of has a way of making you look like an ass.

Go ahead, get on with it. I can go on and keep making you look like the ignorant asshole that you are all day.

I've been waiting for this, actually. Your whole "punching up" routine has gotten so damn tiresome over the years, every time I look down and see your veiled downward gaze sniping and bitching like the little old whiny turd that you are - attempting oh so vainly to hijack every legitimate point I make. Are things in IL really THAT boring? Is your life really all that insignificant that you can't help hijacking real-world facts? (Don't answer).

You know, even when you take your head out of your ass and instead don it with a stupid baseball cap that you pull down far enough to cover the entirety of your fucking face, the effect is still the same.

No number of drinks will make me as stupid and forgetful and as troll-like as you, lazy ass. But that's just how you roll: Sniping like a little bitch from afar and then running away when called out on it.

Go play with your little metal swing-set, Internet Tough Guy. And fire up the welding torch. Preferably after all these drinks that you're enjoying.

Enjoy your escape from reality here at the blog. Where you can argue as stridently as you want, in favor of any fantasy you want to believe, and the facts and arguments won't matter at all. It was a mistake for me to presume that there was any incentive left for you to respond to when it comes to honesty, and I will now know to certainly never again take your arguments seriously - as if they mattered to any reality in which you (or anyone else) actually lives.